''Holly'' is a 2023 Dutch-language
drama film written and directed by
Fien Troch.
It is an international co-production between Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.
The film was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion
The Golden Lion ( it, Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguishe ...
at the
80th Venice International Film Festival, where it premiered on 7 September 2023.
Synopsis
One morning, 15-year-old Holly calls in absent to her school. Shortly thereafter, a serious fire breaks out, which destroys part of the school building and takes the lives of several students. Months later, the accident has still not been fully processed by the traumatized city population. Teacher Anna has created a volunteer group for the grieving community to give comfort to one another. Intrigued by Holly's strange premonition, she invites her to join her group. The girl's presence seems to bring unexpected peace of mind, warmth and hope to the group members. Without Anna's help, people soon begin to seek out Holly and her cathartic energy and demand more and more of her. The gifted girl unwittingly becomes the town's savior. The line between support and abuse is beginning to blur.
Cast
* Cathalina Geeraerts as Holly
* Felix Heremans as Bart
* Greet Verstraete as Anna
* Serdi Faki Alici as Anna's husband
* Els Deceukelier as Holly's mother
* Maya Louisa Sterkendries as Dawn
* Robby Cleiren
* Sara De Bosschere
Production
For the film, Troch again teamed with Frank van den Eeden as director of photography, and her husband Nico Leunen as editor, the latter of whom has been involved in all of Troch's works. For the film's score, she enlisted the American musician
Johnny Jewel, former member of the band
Chromatics, who she already worked with on her previous feature film ''
Home
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
'' (2016).
As of September 2021, the film was budgeted at
€2.5 million.
It was produced by Antonino Lombardo for his company Prime Time (Belgium) and Elisa Heene for Mirage (Belgium),
in co-production with Tarantula (Luxembourg),
Les Films du Fleuve (Belgium), Topkapi (Netherlands), Tabiki (Netherlands) and
Agat Films (France). Production support was provided by Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Casa Kafka, Cinéart,
Netherlands Film Fund The Netherlands Film Fund ( nl, Nederlands Filmfonds) is a subsidy fund for Dutch film productions and was founded in 1993. The Netherlands Film Fund is itself mainly subsidized by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. In 2007, th ...
, Centre du Cinéma et de l'Audiovisuel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Film Fund Luxembourg.
Release
''Holly'' was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion
The Golden Lion ( it, Leone d'oro) is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguishe ...
at the
80th Venice International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 7 September 2023.
It was also invited at the
28th Busan International Film Festival
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
in 'World Cinema' section and was screened on 6 October 2023.
The film was released in Belgium on 22 November 2023 by Cinéart, who also distributed the film in the Netherlands on 7 March 2024. New Story distributed the film in France on 6 March 2024.
Reception
Critical response
On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10.
Accolades
References
External links
*
2023 films
2020s Belgian films
2020s Dutch-language films
2020s French films
Belgian drama films
Dutch drama films
Luxembourgian drama films
French drama films
Films directed by Fien Troch
Les Films du Fleuve films
Films scored by Johnny Jewel
{{2020s-France-film-stub